


dear kaede; things i'm glad you didn't do

by cosmicpoet



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Chapter one, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 22:49:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15716697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: What if Kaede had told Shuichi her plan?





	dear kaede; things i'm glad you didn't do

Kaede shakes with fear; her backpack clings to her, the weight of a shotput ball and of imminent guilt pulling her closer to the ground, closer to the eternity that will soon swallow her up whole. This is the end of either the mastermind or her. The final showdown, only this time, it's at the beginning. She might die. The thought of death is something that she’s never confronted before; her life has been beautiful, at least with her rose-tinted memory, all piano competitions and congratulations and _“oh, Kaede, you’re so talented!”_

Talent. That’s what put her in this situation in the first place. With the word ‘protagonist’ echoing around her mind, bouncing off each thought and tainting it with a role she doesn’t feel as though she belongs in, she can’t rest until she’s taken that role and ruined the mastermind’s plan with it. The feeling in her chest is sure; if nobody else will take action, then she will.

Because there’s an anger that fights her from the inside out, feelings of injustice and rage that punch her gut and want to burst through her chest, the aching of a world that’s so damn unfair, and her, in the midst of it all - the chess-piece queen in the eye of the storm. Ever moving across the board until everyone breaks in her wake, sacrificing herself for a king who has yet to make a move.

Shuichi, that’s him. The guarded piece, able only to move when backed up and protected by others. If she has to play the reckless queen, then he’ll be the one to survive this whole thing - and of course, that means she’ll die, but does she really mind? Would watching him shine on from an afterlife she’s not sure she believes in be enough? Is anything enough for her any more? This whole Ultimate Academy seeps fakery from its walls, oozing from each pore the viscous poison of distrust - nothing in here is real. Is she real? Or is she just a pawn for the mastermind?

And then, her mind decides for her.

“I’m going to kill the mastermind,” she says.

“W-What?” Shuichi replies.

“I have a shotput ball in my bag. I’ve set up the books in the library so that it’ll roll across and kill whoever opens that door.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because,” tears spring into her eyes, “I want you to stop me.”

“Give me your bag.”

“I can’t do that, Shuichi.”

“C’mon, Kaede, you don’t want to be a murderer.”

“Do I not? I can’t give up that easily.”

She says these words with such conviction, but her body fails her. When he takes one of the straps of her backpack off, she doesn’t resist. Even when he holds the shotput ball in his hands, tainted by pink fibres that will forever implicate her as a murderer, she can’t bring herself to say anything that would dissuade him from stopping her plan. Truthfully, her only thought is whether he hates her.

“I’m proud of you,” he says.

“W-What?”

“I’m proud of you. For telling me.”

“I told you because I was weak.”

“No. You told me because you knew what was right. You didn’t want to be a killer, and you let me stop you. I think…Kaede…I think I love you for that.”

“How can you love someone who planned something so…so…so _cruel?”_

“Because cruelty isn’t in your nature. And when people are put in a situation like this, they’re going to react like you did. But there’s strength in you, something so beautiful inside your soul that lets you trust even when your heart aches not to, and that something saved you, today. Not me. But the strength within your own self, Kaede.”

“I don’t believe in myself.”

“I don’t believe in myself, either,” Shuichi says, tears in his eyes, “but you do. You did, only moments ago, and that was enough for me to keep living. Maybe this killing game makes me want to die, and maybe it persuades you to kill, but I know who we are when we’re not in this life-or-death situation. And we’re…you’re…good.”

“You’re a good person, Shuichi.”

“Am I? Am I really a good person for…maybe killing us all? ‘Cause if you don’t kill the mastermind, then maybe nobody gets killed, and maybe we all die because of that.”

“Then we die as the versions of who we truly are. I’d rather die as who I am now than live as someone that this game forced me to be.”

Kaede lays her hand over Shuichi’s. He’s cold, and shaking, but she looks him in the eyes and everything seems calm. Leaning over the desk, she gently pushes her lips against his cheek, comforting him and showing her trust all in one. They sit together, progressing from the desk chairs to the floor, where they end up with their backs against a wall, holding each other as the countdown ticks the time away.

“We’re going to die,” she says, and he bows his head in silence. He rests on her shoulder and holds her hand once more, as much a gesture for him as it is for her. Perhaps they will die, but it’s like Kaede said, it’s better to live as who you are than die as who you’re not.

The music, priming them to kill, forcing them to the precipice of anxiety, blares through the speakers, but they don’t hear it. They only hear the soft hum of each other’s voices, speaking words to one another of hope, of friendship, of love and love and love into eternity, love defying death.

_“A body has been discovered!”_

“It wasn’t you,” Shuichi says, “it wasn’t you.”

In the silence of the room, the aching calm before the storm, they hold onto one another for perhaps the last moment that they can. Hands clasped, close as two people can be, they send their desperate hope towards the only thing that they believe in: one another.

Because they are not killers.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my amazing friend Callie! She's so valid :^)
> 
> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed this!


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